Musings, diatribes and dialogues from one of Chicago's quirkiest musical psychologists. This and that and rat-a-tat-tat.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

To clarify....

Inherently, Ms. Blog Stalker and her henchwoman aren't *bad* people. Especially the henchwoman--I always got along with her, though she took offense to me calling her "street smart" while I was "book smart," as if I was downplaying her. Quite the contrary, actually. Lots of me would prefer to have the wherewithal to be as strong and capable of making it on her own as the Henchwoman. She left the practice and moved briefly to Texas; which, as I mentioned previously, I only found out that she'd moved and returned from a grocery store checker who is a patient at the practice.

As a matter of fact, shortly before my tenure at the practice ended, Ms. BS was getting quite involved in a contemporary large church, volunteering a lot. She expressed interest in coming to one of my service during which I drummed. I was proud of her faith walk and how far she'd traveled. It gave her a sense of fulfillment that, apart from her work, brought her peace.

What made me so upset with Ms. BS in the first place was the nitpicking she subjected me to while I was at Balderdash & Verities. I received a poor work review, with Ms. BS under the influence of the senior doctor (at the time, he's since retired) citing that ALL of the doctors thought not only was I poor worker, but that each one of them had a problem with them personally regarding my demeanor or personality. It was suggested by Guy that I myself go and ask this question to each doctor (save for the one who planted this seed in Ms. BS's mind), and none of them had problem with me. In fact, one of the doctors said I was the most interesting character who'd ever worked there (and no, it wasn't Guy). The most I was guilty of was being a bit on the chatty/dreamy side. When I asked if the other girls in the office would be subject to the same performance review, it didn't happen until approximately a year LATER, which was totally unfair and exclusive. I was being picked on, and I didn't appreciate it at all.

It's hard not to get daydreamy when you're mindlessly feeding papers into a fax machine, particularly if you're a creative mind. And as I said a loooong time ago, there was nothing creative about the position whatsoever. At its peak, it was a 5-doctor, 100 patient a day practice, with scant room and I couldn't handle it. Them letting me go was the smartest, greatest thing they could've done, seeing as now I'm a successful graduate student halfway through a masters and en route to an eventual doctorate degree. Sometimes I wonder if I was only hired BECAUSE I already had a BA. But we'll never know.

It was mundane at times and not intellectual, too fast-paced for me, and made me physically ill under that much stress. It didn't help that Ms. BS noticed and picked on every mistake I made in data entry and had scheduled me at the front desk during Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons, their busiest times, and it was more anxiety that I could handle. Well aware that I had anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder, the company didn't accommodate me at all and, in fact, subjected me to a mandatory drug test under duress when I was having huge issues balancing my blood sugar, which still sometimes bothers me at school, but not half as much as it did at B&V.

As my physical condition deteriorated, I began taking more time off in the hospital as a patient, and I kept most of my bipolar symptoms to myself, though in hindsight, that wasn't smart and made me really sick. One day at lunchtime, when I weighed a scant 113 lbs on a 5'8" frame, able to only keep down baby food, Ms. BS walked through the lunch area and blurted out that she "wished she had the same disease as Andrea," so she "could be as skinny." That hurt me terribly. If any of them thought I enjoyed being so ill I was relegated to eating 2 jars of baby food a day, that, my friends, is balderdash. I endured numerous hospitalizations, tests, operations and procedures during 2010-20111.

What irritated me further was how much time the office staff at B&V spent ON WORK TIME, on the DOCTORS' dimes, reading my blogs, which yes, a lot of which were about my experiences there after I lost my job. Call it morbid curiosity, but the practice had to implement a "no personal internet usage" policy after I logged over 18 pages of proof from my tracker of IP visits from the practice over a several-month period, some open for as long as 7 hours at a time. I know I'm interesting, but not that interesting. I threatened to send them to the head doctor of the practice if they didn't leave me alone. At the time, the text exchanges were "Quit writing about us and we'll leave you alone." That's all well and good, but quit giving me reason to write about you. It was a vicious cycle.

They were all curious as to the hot skinny going on between myself and Guy, when there was nothing we were hiding. That, at times, unnerved him, because he veils in secrecy, but that's not how I conduct my life. The Henchwoman, in particular, threatened to go to Lady GuyGuy exposing the reported "affair" I was having with her husband, when Guy and I knew that was far from the truth. Hence, my second point of contention was being threatened.

After the dust settled finally, and I got rid of them (it helped to block their IP's at home from accessing "Rhythms," I had a sneaking suspicion they'd log back on to gauge my reaction to the death of Madame Guy, which they did, which I found an intrusion. Fast forward to this October. My ongoing friendship with Guy is none of their business. Ms. BS was just entering the wake as Meg and I were leaving, so no words were exchanged until I got the "Henchwoman and I want to meet you for lunch sometime" text, which I truly didn't believe was meant in good or kind spirit; thus, this whole bundle of shit blew up, culminating in them showing up on my property last weekend, with the Park Ridge Police shaking her away from my life, ideally forever, because I honestly don't have anything to say about her to her face other than, "Why did you treat me so disrespectfully and like a moron, and assign me tasks deliberately that you knew would exacerbate my mental condition?" In graduate school, I've obtained official, law-sanctioned accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which allow me to pace myself as my moods change. Had I even known about it when I was at B&V, I would've enacted my rights to better, fairer treatment.

If you go back and read my text exchanges with her, I was more than polite, quite smart, yet cheeky as I am wont to be. Like I said, no professional writer worth salt would pass up material like that just thrown in one's lap. I'm quite content now to hang with my merry band of devotees and the occasional readership of Guy when he's pointed towards something interesting, but please, everyone else at Balderdash & Verities, leave me in peace to live my life, whether it includes Guy or not.

In all honesty, please don't try and contact me again. I wish you, Ms. BS and your henchwoman both the best of luck in your ventures and hope you hire some quality help to ease your workload, because I DO understand how frantic it is up there in front. I'm sure the electronic charting has helped immensely, but still, it's more than *this* bipolar bear can handle.

Appropriate and mature, Andrea. You made very valid points. Anyone who is picked on will naturally feel defensive. You just express it in a way that few people can. Y'all should get together, roll a few joints and kick it. (Not really.)